Marlon James and Nicholas Boggs shortlisted for top literary prizes — SkimNews
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- Marlon James is shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel The Disappearers, a dark exploration of AIDS-era gay life and homophobia in Jamaica, informed by a rumored 1980s homophobic attack he spent years investigating.
- Nicholas Boggs is shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Baldwin: A Love Story, a biography drawing on two decades of research into James Baldwin’s intimate life, sparked by a 1966 reference to an out-of-print children’s book Baldwin co-created.
- James and Boggs began their relationship through a dating app in 2018, living three blocks apart in Brooklyn, with their third date taking place at Buckingham Palace during a Booker anniversary event.
- Boggs’s research directly influenced James’s novel when he uncovered Baldwin’s 1969 direction of Fortune and Men’s Eyes in Turkey, a detail James incorporated as the structural and emotional core of The Disappearers.
- James did not read Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room until age 50, saying he could not have read it at 20 due to being deeply closeted while growing up gay in 1980s Kingston.
- Boggs kept his manuscript private from James until completion, rejecting assumptions of creative osmosis, though they discussed research and ideas throughout their relationship.
Why it matters: Two Black queer writers are simultaneously recognized at the highest level of literary achievement, each recovering erased histories—James through fiction rooted in Jamaican violence, Boggs through archival resurrection of Baldwin’s hidden relationships—amplifying narratives long excluded from mainstream literary recognition.
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